He's about to ask her Are we clear? Gritting his teeth like he's about to just bite off the doubts on her head, but she looks so lost and he realize he's been an ass for talking her that way, even if his intentions were good. He remembers what paves the road to hell, after all.
Damon looks down, then back to her green eyes.
"I didn't mean to-," but what can he say? This whole thing just fell upon them, out of nowhere, and she just vomited hell, and he's not the one in charge of the healing; he's only good at breaking.
Seems to matter what I say, so I'll hold my tongue at bay
And rather use my mouth to kiss your frown away
So your doubts no longer darken your day
So you can hold your head up high come what may
"It wasn't you," he says, gentler but firm, "The stuff went to your head, that's all. It wasn't you, and you need to accept the fact that you can't always control everything."
Bonnie's eyes are glossy and he's sure her conscience can't be calmed with a few, useless words but he can't do anything more.
Damon guides her to her bed and her mind is miles away as she let's him move her like a beautiful doll. He draws away the blankets and once she lies down on the bed he tucks her in.
He wants to ask her if she feels any better, if there's anything in the world he can do to make her feel better but the first question is stupid and the second one is probably egocentric, and he brushes away all the nagging in his head to leave her to rest.
She doesn't even look at him. He could do anything to her right now and she would not even flinch.
It's not like she never ignored him before, but this new silence is just so lifeless, so terrible.
He can stay or he can go and she will not know the difference.
#
When she turns on lamp the on nightstand it's barely five in the morning. The clock says so.
Her eyelids feel heavy, her temperature arose under the blankets and when she sat up to move them she saw something on the floor, just next to her bed. This is how she found herself staring down at Damon Salvatore, laying on his back with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed.
Too much has happened to be scared about something so small. The turmoil of emotion left her empty but all the same something tightens in her chest, giving her a sort of odd pain.
"I wasn't snoring," it's the first thing he tells her, even if she didn't say a word.
Damon open one eye, then the other, pouts his mouth and looks at her.
"What are you doing here?" She usually sounds a lot more pissed when she feeds him this line. The blankness doesn't suit her, he thinks.
"I felt tired and was too lazy to move," he tells her.
"This is my room," she says, like she can't bring herself to make up a whole, real sentence.
"Technically," he says, "Since this is my house, the room belongs to me and so does anything that's inside of it."
Do I belong to you too? She wants to ask but she is so tired, she can't put herself into this conversation, nor she can look away from him.
And Damon holds her eyes and even if his mouth is smiling, his eyes are not.
"You should sleep in a bed," she suggests, expressionless.
"I'd like that," he says with a grin, "Are you offering?"
It takes him a moment to let his brain absorb the fact that she is sliding on the other side of the bed leaving him enough space to lay down with her. He even feels unstable on his feet as he stands to place himself next to her.
So please remember that I'm gonna follow through all the way
The place he lays down on is warm and smells like her. Bonnie is turned to the side so that all he can see is the back of her head.
He reaches out behind him to turn off the light and turns his head to look at her.
"Bonnie?" he calls her name with a low voice to not disturb her. He knows she can't possibly have fallen asleep already, but she doesn't answer him.
"Fine," he says, still keeping his voice down, "I wanted to be the good boy and ask you for permission but, since you're asleep, the silent assent will have to do."
He turns on his side too, and puts himself right behind her. She's tense but doesn't say a word.
Oh my love, if it's all I can do, I'll take the fall for you
"Don't move away," he says, "Don't freak out, don't scream," he adds, "I'm about to put my arm around your waist because I think that one of us could really use some human contact here," he cannot swear he's talking about her, "If you can't contain your repulsion you have plenty of time to let me know graciously since I'm moving really slow here, but, even so, I will not take a no as an answer because I'm not that gentlemanly, so bear with me," he explains, while his arms are inches away from her clothes and the skin and bones and pain under them.
His arm closes her in and holds her safely against his chest.
Damon can hear her breathing in the dark, and then her voice.
"I hate you," she says, like she's letting go of something and her tense body trembles before relaxing altogether. Bonnie's hand falls on his, placed on her abdomen.
"I know," he says, smiling against her hair.
'Cause I will soar when I lay down with you and give my all for you
#
When he wakes up she's in the same position she fell asleep into. He's still holding her. She's still letting him. He pushes away the thought that nothing he ever did with a woman felt this intimate.
Leaving the bed feels almost unsettling, but she needs her rest and she needs to eat- in this order.
Damon disappears from her room to make sure to provide her with both things, and when he's done scrambling eggs, making coffee, preparing orange juice and heating up the croissant – basically being her personal Martha freaking Stewart – he goes back to force her to come down and eat something. He'll push it down her throat with a stick if he has to.
When he opens both the door and his mouth to call her name, holding her mug of coffee in one hand, she's not in bed. The bathroom door is ajar, and the steam coming out from the inside smells like her skin and her honey bath foam. He takes two steps forward and it's not his fault if his eyes fall on the mirror visible from the open door.
It's covered in steam and he can barely make out colors, but his mouth is suddenly dry.
Sweet Jesus, I'm on fire
She has the sweetest, darkest side
Damon can picture the water pouring down on her tonic body. He can see the drops running down her, consuming themselves against her skin, batting against her cleavage, her round breasts, can see her hands traveling along her own curves to soap and wash herself. He can see her head titled up, eyes closed, to feel the water jet against her face and can see her hands push back her hair that sticks to her naked back and then they reach out so that her palms are flat against the tiles, and her mouth is open because of the soothing she's savoring, and he realizes his breath is harsher.
And when it comes into her eyes
I know iron and steel couldn't hold me
No need to embellish the fact or waste time dancing around it: Damon is hard.
The pressing of his erection against his jeans makes him groan and the sound of the water jet is talking to him. Telling him things he doesn't needs to hear, much less desire. Yet he wants to do them all and then start over again.
He wants to slip into that room and press himself against her. He wants to feel the weight of her breasts in the palms of his hands, he wants to feel her bottom pressed against his jeans, he wants to nibble at her earlobe and tell her It's okay, I'm here - because lately he feels like he's never anywhere else but with her - I'm here, can you feel me?
Good God, I'm easy bruised
But so often a moth to her flame
And the things that she's asked me to do
Would see a senior saint forgetting his name
In his head everything is so vivid that he can almost feel it: her slippery skin under his hands, angular and sharp fitting against soft and curvy, white marble complimenting dark mocha so perfectly that they resemble the art of a mosaic, her warmth wrapped around him so tightly that he cannot understand where he ends and she begins, the delicious sounds she makes, echoing in his chest like an ancient call driving him to the sweetest madness.
I have an audience with the Pope
And I'm saving the world at eight
But if she says she needs me, she says she needs me
Everybody's going to have to wait, ah, ah
The coffee almost spills, and that is not the only thing that could spill at any moment now, he thinks. And, really, this is the only coherent thought he can master because every cell of his brain is beyond consumed with her.
But she's not in condition to be the object of his lustful inclination, obviously. And this is just a passing need, obviously; because he loves Elena, obviously. It's even redundant to say at this point. Really.
He puts down the cup of coffee on the toilette table and once she comes out from the bathroom that's pretty much all she finds of him.
#
Note: the songs I used in this chapter are "All the way 4 u" by Poets of the Fall and "An audience with the Pope" by Elbow.